The project, described by the applicant as a "sustainable new community", features a range of one-bedroom apartments to five-bedroom family houses, as well as affordable homes.

From all the proposed strategic allocations identified in the draft Local Plan, Wisley Property Investments states that the airfield site contributes the least to the purposes of the green belt and is outside the area of outstanding natural beauty.

The company has also claimed there was a positive attendance at public consultation events held in East Horsley, Ripley and Guildford, and that more than 60% of feedback was either positive or neutral.

Mike Murray from Causeway Land, the project co-ordinator, said: “Wisley Airfield has the space to combine countryside living with the benefits of modern services and our proposals include shops, sports facilities, employment opportunities, medical provision, a care home and a new school.

“On top of this, half of the site will be public open space, including a 120-acre countryside area, football pitches and a 4G hockey pitch.

Initial designs for a town of more than 2,000 homes which could be built on the site of Wisley Airfield

“Wisley Airfield is the only strategic site in the borough that can realistically deliver significant housing within five years and is one of the best-connected strategic sites in the borough.

“There are nine railway stations, including Woking and Effingham Junction, within five miles of the site and consent has already been granted for direct access from the A3 at the Ockham Interchange.”

The applicant states that the project will provide 7,000 square metres of employment and shopping space, with the creation of up to 350 full-time jobs.

The Wisley Action Group has criticised the proposal, saying it is illogical, ill-conceived and a massive assault on Guildford’s green belt at a time when the council declared support for its protection.

“While the Cayman Island-based owners of Three Farms Meadows, the former Wisley Airfield, have repeatedly claimed that the land represents the largest previously developed area in Guildford, it quite clearly isn’t,” a spokesman for the action group said.

“Nearly three-quarters of this green belt location is farmland and open countryside and has always been so. And, as confirmed by leading counsel, Peter Village QC, there is insufficient available land for a proposal of this nature.

“The area lacks existing facilities – as already confirmed by the Green Belt and Countryside Study, prepared for Guildford Borough Council by Pegasus Consulting.

“Undoubtedly the prospect of some 5,000 extra cars jamming the already congested roads in Ockham, Horsley, Ripley, Cobham, Effingham, Bookham and other areas will make this proposal a matter of deep concern for the whole borough.”

The group said close proximity to the A3 and M25 interchange would seriously compound existing access issues associated with Wisley Gardens, adding that it would ‘vigorously oppose the proposal’.

A new settlement was included in Guildford’s much-criticised draft Local Plan, which was abandoned in the autumn and will now go to further consultation after the May elections.